A "dangerous" man met a teenager on Hinge and stopped her leaving his flat before saying "I will have to kill you now". Mark Henderson, 38, met the year-old woman on the dating app and the pair had been having a casual sexual relationship when he invited her around to his flat on the afternoon of July 26 However, the teenager, who the ECHO is not naming because of legal reasons, was subjected to a prolonged ordeal when Henderson became paranoid in his drug-induced state and refused to let her leave.
Over the course of a terrifying 24 hours, Henderson took her phone due to fears she was recording him and was going to blackmail him before repeatedly stabbing her with a large kitchen knife. A judge at Liverpool Crown Court told Henderson that he was a dangerous man and imposed an extended sentence to protect him from the public.
Opening the case, Paul Treble, prosecuting , said the defendant's brother Andrew Henderson received a phone call at around 5. The defendant told him: "She has attacked me and I have stabbed her back. I might have killed her. An ambulance was called and when paramedics arrived Henderson told them: "I'm not a threat to you. Can you get in, she is dying. He claimed he had been attacked by the complainant with a bottle and a drill and had told her "I will have to kill you now". The victim was taken to hospital by the air ambulance at 6.
The defendant was also taken to hospital and told the police "I took the knife off her and tried to kill her". When the victim was interviewed a week later, she told officers that she had gone to the defendant's house on July 26 but he appeared paranoid and was convinced that she was going to blackmail him. She said the defendant had taken a lot of cocaine and continued to have a line every 20 minutes while she had a couple when she arrived. Concerned about his escalating behaviour, she tried to leave but he told her: "You are going to live with me and feel how it means to be me".
The court heard the defendant's paranoia involved the amount of taxis on his road and offered to drive her back to her home on the Wirral. However, she told him that he would have to be sober to drive.
